


happiness is a warm gun

by saysthemagpie



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Assassins & Hitmen, Blowjobs, Bondage, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Harry's a hitman, Humor, Light Angst, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Niall's his boyfriend, OT5 Friendship, Sex Toys, a Mr and Mrs Smith AU of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 13:54:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6910045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saysthemagpie/pseuds/saysthemagpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Half an hour ago Harry was cooking a nice anniversary dinner for the two of them, fussing over the chicken and rehearsing the knock-knock joke he’s been saving up for the occasion. And now here he is, crawling through the wreckage of their kitchen on his belly, trying to stay low so he doesn’t accidentally present Niall with an easy target.</i>
</p><p>Harry's leading a double life. So is Niall, as it happens. Assassins/Spy AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I feel weirdly fond of this fic, even though it sometimes made me want to tear my hair out. I hope you like it too! Thanks to [harrymynewborngiraffe](http://www.harrymynewborngiraffe.tumblr.com) for reading ten thousand drafts, which is barely an exaggeration at all. This was loosely inspired by the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
> 
> I don't know anything about the SAS or MI6 or how guns work or any of that, so just pretend like it all makes sense. 
> 
> Warnings for non-graphic references to violence and torture. Also, Harry and Niall spend approx 0% of this fic reflecting on the moral dilemmas involved in killing people for money.

“Harry, what the _fuck_?”

Really he’s the one who should be asking that question, Harry thinks angrily as he reloads his gun. Half an hour ago he was cooking a nice anniversary dinner for the two of them, fussing over the chicken and rehearsing the knock-knock joke he’s been saving up for the occasion. And now here he is, crawling through the wreckage of their kitchen on his belly, trying to stay low so he doesn’t accidentally present Niall with an easy target. 

He doesn’t waste breath replying, just drags himself up behind the kitchen island. It’s good cover, at least, and he needs it – a quick check reveals he’s down to four rounds after the first blast of fire, without a spare slug in sight. He’d barely had time to fish his Glock out of the crisper and turn off the stove before Niall was bursting through the back door, calling out his name. 

Zayn was right. He’s gotten sloppy living out in the suburbs. Careless, even. There was a time in his life when he’d kept extra rounds tucked away in every corner of his home. You never knew when the Russian mob might come knocking. Harry’s not an idiot; he’s a professional. 

Also a bit of an idiot, maybe, given his current predicament. 

“Listen, Harry, I know you’re very upset right now, but – ”

The chandelier explodes in a spray of glass. Niall curses. 

“Shut up, Agent Horan,” Harry says grimly, lowering his gun. “I’d rather just get this over with.” 

*

**Thirty minutes earlier**

His phone won’t stop buzzing. 

Harry’s been ignoring it for about half an hour now, as he waltzes around the kitchen lifting lids and tasting sauces, serenading his empty house. “ _You make me feel! You make me fee-EEEL! You make me feel like a_ – oh, would you stop that please!” he shouts.

His phone stills on the counter. " _Sorry, Harvey, I didn't catch that_.”

“It’s Harry, Siri. Remember?” 

No matter how many times he slowly, patiently repeats his name to her, she never manages to get it right. Niall says she’s just taking the piss, but Harry’s got a more generous conception of robot nature. He’s seen _Her_ , after all. They might be soulmates, him and Siri, if this thing with Niall doesn’t work out. 

“ _Incoming call from Zayn_ ,” Siri says. “ _Would you like to answer, Hard-on_?”

Harry opens his mouth to protest, then glances down. Not entirely inaccurate. Well, he's been looking forward to their anniversary dinner all week: planning the perfect outfit, selecting the perfect menu, brushing up on blowjob tips in back issues of _Cosmo_. He wants everything to be just right. Niall’s been so stressed at work lately, working long hours on some auditing project Harry doesn’t quite understand. Before meeting Niall he had no idea that accounting was such an emotionally demanding profession, or that it might require such long hours in the gym. 

(“You know what they say,” Niall always tells him when Harry asks. “Mind, body, data.”) 

"Decline call," Harry tells Siri. Zayn probably just wants to scold him for not filing the paperwork on his last hit or something. It can definitely wait, whatever it is. 

“ _Like a natural woman,_ ” he sings quietly to himself, stirring the pasta. 

" _Did you say, Order Chinese again_?" 

"Yum," Harry says without thinking. "Oh – no, wait, Siri, don't – "

He lunges for the phone, disconnecting the call on the second ring. 

Seven missed calls from Zayn, which, persistent much? Harry thinks. But below that, more intriguingly, is an encrypted message from headquarters marked Top Priority. 

He chews on his bottom lip, thumb hovering over the icon. He's sworn to himself he's not going to take on any more cases, just finish up the handful of long-term projects he's got going. He's retiring, damn it, and this time for real. He’s even drafted his letter of resignation to Simon in an email, though he hasn’t worked up the nerve to send it yet. 

But it can’t hurt to just read the message, right? He might be leaving the whole killer-for-hire business behind him soon, but it’s fun to stay in the loop. See who’s assassinating whom, how much they’re getting paid for it, that kind of thing.

He glances over his shoulder first – Niall can be oddly stealthy at times – then types in his login credentials.

*

It takes him a moment to understand what he's looking at. 

In the photo Niall’s hair is dark brown instead of bottle blond, so short it’s practically buzzed. He’s got on some kind of uniform Harry doesn’t recognize, and he’s staring straight ahead, eyes fixed unsmilingly on the camera. 

It's kinda hot, Harry thinks, popping a piece of carrot into his mouth. Then he reads the message below it, and nearly chokes.

 _ **Target:** Agent Niall James Horan_  
_**Position** : Secret Intelligence Service - MI6 branch. Ex-SAS. Rank and current status unknown._  
**_Priority Level:_** _Urgent_  
**_Reward_** : £6 million

  
_Suspect should be considered armed and highly dangerous. May be traveling with military associates. Payment will be rendered upon proof of termination._

There are two sets of GPS coordinates listed at the bottom of the message. Harry doesn't recognize the first one, but the second set looks familiar. That’s because he’s standing right on them, clutching a wooden spoon in one hand and staring down at his phone.

"What," he says. 

" _Sorry, Harpo. I didn't quite understand that. Did you say – ”_

"Siri, this is really not the time!" 

It’s a prank, is Harry’s first thought. Zayn and Louis must’ve gotten wind of his retirement, even though he hasn’t told anyone yet, and they’ve somehow hijacked the messaging system and sent him this as a going-away prank. 

“Very funny,” he says out loud, in case they’ve got secret cameras going. He hopes they’re not waiting outside to surprise him. If so he’ll have to ask them to come back later, or preferably never, because he can’t risk Niall seeing them and asking difficult questions like _Who are these blokes?_ or _Why didn’t you ever tell me you were an assassin?_

**Ha ha Zayn that is very funny** he types. **Can it wait though Im busy**.

He adds the sexy salsa lady emoji, two aubergines, and, upon further reflection, a dragon. 

His screen lights up almost immediately with Zayn’s response. 

_would you pick up ur DAMN PHONE H !!_  
_N knows everything_  
_hes en route_

**What!!**

_pack only what u need_  
_stay calm n DO NOT get emotional !!_  
_c u soon xx Z_

Stay calm. 

Okay. Harry can do that. He’s the picture of calm. Cool as a cucumber, really, or any number of refreshing summer vegetables. 

Only – he can’t quite process it. Niall, a _spy_? Niall Horan, unassuming young Irishman, golf enthusiast and secret binge watcher of _Say Yes To The Dress_ , is some kind of James Bond ex-military spy? And he’s got a price on his head, and he's on his way home, and – 

Harry’s eyes go wide. The spoon clatters to the ground.

Niall knows about him. He _knows_. 

*

**Four years earlier**

"The gentleman in the corner sends his regards." 

The bartender slides a tall, frothy pink drink down the bar towards him. Harry accepts it graciously, turning halfway around on his barstool and treating the gentleman in question to the sight of him leisurely pursuing the straw with his tongue. The guy’s staring at him openly now, his expression hungry. 

Harry has to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Sometimes his job is so easy he thinks a trained monkey could do it, as long as that monkey had beautiful hair and very pink lips and a British accent. 

Shouldn't be long now, at least. He surreptitiously checks his watch – almost eleven. If he's quick about it he might even be able to get the first flight out tomorrow. 

He’s about to get up and saunter over, hips swaying, when someone slides onto the barstool next to him.

"I like your mermaid.”

Harry blinks. It’s the Irish bloke from The hotel – Niall something, he thinks. The one who’d been watching him earlier over his sunglasses while Harry splashed around in the hotel pool. Niall had even graciously applauded his backflip. 

Harry had inquired about him at the desk after, strictly for recon purposes, of course. According to the pretty hotel receptionist, who's been giving Harry the best gossip for a few days now, Niall's here on a golf holiday with friends.

Harry looks down at his tattoo. “A lot of people think she shouldn’t have, you know, girl parts _and_ a tail," he says. "Like, she should have one or the other.” 

“Well,” Niall says. “Not to be crude, but it seems like mermaids should get to have orgasms too.” 

“Exactly!” Harry says, nearly upsetting his drink in his excitement. He looks at Niall with new interest. To his knowledge, he’s never been in the presence of someone who shares his views on the subject of mermaid sex. 

“So what’s it mean, anyway?” Niall asks.

"You're not supposed to ask people what their tattoos mean," Harry tells him, chasing the straw again with his mouth. "What if it was something really personal?"

"Like what?" 

"I dunno," Harry says. "What if it was for my dead mum or something?"

"Is it?" Niall says. "'Cos if so that's a bit weird, mate, no offense. Since she's naked and all." 

Harry considers this. "My dead girlfriend, then. Who was lost at sea.”

"Oh," Niall says, his face falling a bit. "So you're – it's girlfriends mainly, is it?"

"Just the one," Harry says solemnly, "but after the shipwreck I swore I'd never love another woman as long as I lived. So it's blokes for me now, mostly." 

Niall laughs. "I'm Niall Horan, by the way." 

"Harry Styles," says Harry, which is surprising, because when he's on assignment he usually tells people he's called Alberto or Jose or Jean Valjean, depending on his mood. 

Over his shoulder he can see the guy who'd been buying him drinks glaring daggers at them both, looking like he's about ready to storm out in a huff. 

Harry remembers, suddenly, that he's on a job. He's a professional, not a uni kid on holiday free to flirt with any bloke who catches his eye.

"Sorry," he says, standing up. "I've got a prior engagement." 

Niall catches his arm. He’s not smiling anymore. 

"Listen, Harry," he says. "It's none of my business, really, and you can tell me to fuck off if you like, but you might not want to go home with that one. I've heard – well. People say he doesn't play nice." 

The guy's a small time drug lord with delusions of grandeur, whose exes tend to disappear and turn up months later in small, nearly unidentifiable pieces. That's why Harry’s got a switchblade in his pocket and two syringes of an untraceable synthetic poison tucked inside each of his sparkly gold boots. 

Harry doesn't play nice either. 

Of course, Niall doesn’t know that. He probably thinks Harry’s just another tourist out on the pull.

"S'pose I should go home with you instead," he says. For some reason it makes his heart beat a little faster, saying it out loud. "Nice Irish lad. Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth, all that." 

"Dunno about that last bit," Niall says. "But, um. You could, if you wanted. Go home with me." 

Harry looks at him. Incredibly, Niall blushes. 

"Um," he says. "Or not, never mind. Sorry, I thought – " He trails off, gesturing weakly with his drink. "I'll just, um.”

He's cute when he's flustered, Harry thinks. He’s cute, period. 

"Okay,” he says. 

"Okay?" Niall asks uncertainly. 

Fuck professionalism. Zayn can yell at him in the morning. 

"Let's get out of here," Harry says, slinging an arm around Niall’s waist. "You and me, Niall Horan. Let's blow this popsicle stand."

*

**Now**

“Shut up, Agent Horan,” Harry says. “I’d rather just get this over with.” 

It’ll be better if they don’t talk, he thinks. Or look at each other, or acknowledge each other in any way except for the part where he puts a bullet in Niall’s head and flees the country. 

“Harry,” Niall says from the living room, where he’s taken shelter behind the ruins of the china cabinet. “Let’s not shoot up any more of the furniture. I think there’s been a miscommunication.”

“Don’t play innocent with me, Niall. If that’s even your real name.”

“Okay, first of all, it is my real name,” Niall says, sounding exasperated. At least he’s dropped the innocent act. “And second of all, I’m not saying I’ve handled all of this perfectly, but I’m not sure you’ve got any claim to the moral high ground here, Mr. I-Used-to-Be-A-Baker.” 

“I _was_ a baker,” Harry shoots back. “And I still am, on weekends and holidays when Barbara’s short-staffed.” 

When you think about it that way, he hasn't even really lied. More like left out a few details, that’s all, like the part where he was recruited straight out of school to join Europe’s most elite security firm and then spent years traveling the globe killing people for money. 

“Well then,” Niall says. “I take it back. You’re a paragon of honesty.” 

“Good one,” Harry says without thinking. Last Christmas he’d gotten them both matching Word-of-the-Day calendars for their desks, in hopes of improving Niall’s abysmal Scrabble game. Progress has been slow, but moments like this are encouraging. 

“Thank you,” Niall says, and then adds cunningly, “You know, I’d quite fancy a game of Scrabble now. What do you say we put the guns down and work out all this aggression on the board?”

“What a great plan. How’s this for starters: N-E-V-E-R, and also D-I-E.” 

“Harry!” 

“I’m not playing Scrabble with you,” says Harry hotly, “because you ruined our dinner and you ruined the house.” He wants to add, _And you ruined our lives_ , but doesn’t. Notorious assassins don’t get emotional when their boyfriends turn out to be undercover spies. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket. _are u out yet??_ Zayn wants to know. 

Harry laboriously taps out a one-handed reply, still clutching his gun. **no hes hiding behind the china cabinet. which is totally ruined by the way. mums going to be so upset. but dont worry Zayn I wont let him take me alive**

_???_  
_ru talking about N ??_  
_did u listen to my voicemail ??????_

Harry rolls his eyes. For a tech mastermind, Zayn can be hilariously old-fashioned sometimes. He’s the only person Harry knows under the age of thirty who bothers leaving voicemails. But of course Harry can’t listen to it now, he’s got an objective. 

Speaking of Niall, he’s being awfully quiet in the living room. Harry wonders if he’s decided to sneak out the back and escape into the night so neither of them will have to die. It seems unlikely, but he's learned from yoga that you have to visualize the world as you wish it to be. 

He counts to ten under his breath, listening hard, then gets on his stomach and starts crawling again towards the hall. 

Niall vaults smoothly over the kitchen island, landing in a crouch a few feet in front of him.

It’s very James Bond meets Jackie Chan. Harry would be impressed, if he weren’t busy scrambling to his feet, gun in hand. He had no idea Niall could move that fast, what with the bum knee and all. Maybe that’s part of his cover story, like the accounting job and the dyed hair. _How deep does the rabbit hole go?_ he wonders. Is Niall even Irish? Does he actually hate sports?

“Come on, Harry, I’m unarmed,” Niall says, holding up his hands. “Left my gun in the other room.” 

“Well, that was stupid of you,” Harry says, no longer impressed. Honestly, what a rookie mistake. “How’re you meant to kill me if you haven’t got a weapon?”

He eyes him suspiciously. Niall doesn’t _look_ like a hardened military operative. He just looks like Harry’s easygoing fiancé, except there’s plaster dust in his hair from where Harry’d shot apart the living room ceiling earlier, and his glasses seem to have been shattered in the fray. 

“I’m not trying to kill you,” says Niall, “though I will incapacitate you with my bare hands if necessary, so don’t push it.” 

Harry peers at his tie, which, upon closer inspection, is patterned with drawings of stick figures playing golf. A few are raising their clubs aloft, presumably to express their fanatical devotion to the sport. 

“That’s awful,” he says, meaning the tie. 

“I’ll try to be gentle,” Niall says grimly, before ducking under the gun and slide-tackling him into the wall. 

*

In the ensuing struggle, the gun is knocked out of Harry’s hand and goes spinning away down the hallway. Harry fights like a wildcat, flailing his limbs about and sinking his teeth into whatever comes within biting distance. But it’s no use. Niall’s all wiry muscle, whereas he’s got noodles for arms and only scraped a pass in hand-to-hand training because Zayn let him win. 

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Harry complains, squirming wildly beneath him. “You know I bruise like a peach.”

“Sorry, pet,” Niall says, as he catches a stray elbow aimed at his face and forces Harry’s wrists over his head. He’s not even breathing hard, as if subduing Harry has barely taxed his capabilities. 

Harry feels slightly put out, and also a little aroused, which is going to make things awkward if Niall doesn’t stop moving around in his lap soon. This must’ve been what Zayn meant when he warned him not to get emotional.

It’s just that it’s surprisingly difficult to concentrate on his mission objectives— _terminate lying fiancé, destroy incriminating evidence, report back to Simon_ —when Niall’s leaning over him and breathing hotly against his face, saying things like, “Now, are you going to hold still for me or do I have to tie you up?” 

Harry shivers a little. “I’ll hold still,” he lies. 

“Really?” Niall says, looking doubtful. 

“I'm sorry I freaked out and tried to kill you,” Harry says. “I was just upset about dinner. I’m ready to talk now.”

He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and gazes up at Niall, wide-eyed, the most cherubic expression he can manage. Niall doesn’t quite let up on his wrists, but his grip loosens a bit. God, Harry can’t believe how gullible he is. If this is the best Britain has to offer, he’s a little concerned. 

“Okay, for the record, I don't believe you for a second,” Niall says. “But we’re a little pressed for time, so – ”

As soon as he’s within range, Harry spits in his face. 

“Jesus, Harry!”

It’s all the distraction he needs to twist free, scrambling to his feet and sprinting for the stairs. Niall’s cursing behind him, hot on his heels, but without a gun he can’t do much unless he catches him. At the top of the stairs Harry turns around and kicks out at his chest, to push him back down. 

That turns out to be a mistake, since Niall uses his weird judo powers again to catch Harry’s foot in midair and pull him back down on the landing. 

A lot of things about their sex life make more sense now that he knows about Niall’s secret identity. Harry reflects on some of them as he’s flipped onto his back and pinned for a second time, his wrists bound securely to the stair railing with Niall’s fashion crime of a necktie. Maybe it should have struck him as odd that an accountant knew how to tie so many different kinds of knots, most of them one-handed, some of them underwater.

Possibly all the sex was just training for this, the final betrayal. This makes Harry even angrier. 

“I’m a British citizen,” he shouts. “You can’t hit me, there are laws!” 

Niall looks exasperated. “I’m not hitting you,” he says, “which you’d realize if you’d shut up and listen to me for five bloody seconds.”

Harry hollers louder, just to spite him. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” says Niall. He fists a hand in his shirt, pulling him up hard, and smushes their faces together. 

“Mmph,” Harry says, startled. 

A tongue presses at the seam of his lips. He tries to keep them shut, but Niall just keeps licking determinedly at his mouth, licking all around it, till their faces are both shiny-wet with saliva and Harry can’t tell whose spit is whose anymore. 

“You’re so gross,” he gasps, twisting away, wrists straining at his bonds. He tries to buck Niall off his lap, to conceal the fact that the whole face-smushing spit thing is getting him kinda hot. “You’re slobbery and horrible and I hate you.” 

Niall snorts. “Come off it, Styles. I could make you come in your pants just by slobbering all over you.” As if to prove his point, he suctions his mouth onto Harry’s neck and blows a wet raspberry there. 

Harry makes a completely undignified noise, something between a squawk and a moan, his legs falling open. This is advanced psychological warfare, the likes of which he’s never encountered before. 

“That proves nothing,” he says, breathless, which earns him another raspberry. It’s louder this time, wetter, and while he’s squirming Niall takes advantage of his distraction to ruck his t-shirt up around his armpits. Harry shivers, body trembling against Niall’s. His nipples are painfully hard, all four of them. 

Must be a draught coming in through the shattered windows, he reasons. It’s definitely not got anything to do with the heat in Niall’s gaze. 

“Look at you,” Niall says, and then shuts his mouth fast, like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Harry feels smug, until Niall scrapes a thumbnail over his nipple, drawing a whimper out of him. 

“Want me to do one here?” 

“No,” Harry says promptly. “I want you to untie me so I can kill you and escape to Mexico.”

It only makes Niall laugh. Not exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for. 

“You’re something, Harry Styles,” he says, and digs his nail into Harry’s bare skin, just hard enough to leave a crescent-shaped mark there. “Still haven’t figured out what.” 

“Terrifying,” Harry suggests. “Menacing. Formidable.” 

“Mm, good ones,” says Niall. "Though I was thinking more along the lines of _too bloody stubborn for your own good_. Have you got any idea why I came home early today?” 

“To torment me with the sight of your horrible face?”

“I can blindfold you, if you like," Niall says. 

Harry can’t conceal his body’s reaction. “Guh,” he says. “Stop – stop tricking me with sex things.” 

“Hm,” Niall says, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Hypothetically speaking, would that work?” 

_Yes_ , Harry thinks. “No. I’ve got my anti-torture certificate.” It’s half true; he’d gone to the mandatory training last spring, but he’d skived off most of the hands-on sessions to smoke up in the toilets with Zayn and failed the exam. He’s scheduled to retake it next month.

“It might help relax you,” Niall muses. “You do get all sweet and sleepy after.” He slides a hand between Harry’s legs, squeezing lightly at the bulge there. “What d’you say, Haz?”

“You’ll never get anything out of me, ever,” Harry says breathlessly, which isn’t quite an answer. “You can torture me all you like and I’ll never tell.”

“Not gonna torture you, pet,” says Niall. “Already know everything I need to know, anyway. Just gonna help you unwind a little. Let me just – ”

He checks his fancy watch, reading something on the screen. 

Harry feels slightly insulted. Here he is, tied up and completely at Niall’s mercy, and he’s more interested in the time. He tilts his hips up, rubbing himself against Niall’s hand a little, trying to get his attention. 

“Getting started without me, I see,” says Niall, looking back down at him. “Maybe you don’t even need me here.”

Harry whimpers a little at the thought. Maybe Niall would watch him, secretly. Maybe he’s got cameras everywhere and he’d just sit and watch Harry getting more and more desperate, humping at the floorboards, trying to find some relief. 

“More fun like this, though,” Niall says, lowering his head. Harry gasps at the sensation of his hot mouth pressed against the bare skin of his chest. A tongue flicks teasingly over his nipple—his favorite one, the top left one—before Niall takes it into his mouth and begins to suck, tongue laving slow wet circles around the sensitive bud. 

Harry’s dick twitches in the cup of Niall’s hand, his jeans gone uncomfortably tight. Niall sucks and sucks, worrying at his nipple with his teeth till it’s sore and puffy, the room silent except for the wet sounds of his mouth working. It occurs to Harry that he’s meant to be resisting. He turns his face into his arm and bites at the soft flesh there, trying to keep himself quiet. 

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Niall says when he notices, drawing back. His mouth is wet and red. Harry wants to kiss it, bite it. 

“Are you quite finished?” he says instead, as haughtily as he can manage. 

“Seems a bit rude to finish before you do.” Niall waggles his eyebrows, as if he might otherwise miss the pun. 

Harry rolls his eyes. Clearly Niall doesn’t know him at all, and their entire relationship’s been a sham. It’s a blessing, really, that they’ve figured it out now instead of later, after they’d adopted four babies and a rescue dog and finally put up that fence in the back garden. 

“You’re the worst,” he says. “And you’re really bad at spy things.”

“Oh really?”

“You haven’t even searched me for tracking devices yet.”

“Maybe I’m new to this,” Niall says. “Ever think of that?” 

Harry feels instantly guilty. Not everyone’s lucky enough to have the kind of training Simon’s given them. Niall doesn’t seem to be much good at interrogation, either. Harry hasn’t even had to say _I’d rather die!_ yet, or any of the usual dramatics. 

“Sorry,” he says. “Are you?”

“Nah,” Niall says. “But you know me. Mr. Forgetful.”

“Mr. Butterfingers,” Harry offers. “Mr. Chickenlegs.” 

“You said a strip search, right?”

Harry hadn’t, but he’s afraid his dick’s going to fall off if he doesn’t get some air down there pronto. So he just scowls menacingly at the ceiling, letting Niall unzip his jeans and yank them down around his thighs. 

“Christ, Harry,” Niall says. His voice has gone all funny. “You really are trying to kill me.”

Harry glances down. 

“Oh,” he says. “I forgot.” 

He really had. The panties were meant to be a surprise – he’d ordered them special online, put them on just before Niall got home – but in all the excitement it’d slipped his mind. The rose-pink silk’s pulled tight over his erection, the tip of it peeking above the lace waistband. There’s a wet spot spreading across the front, sticky with precome. 

“This my present?” Niall touches the damp fabric with his fingertips. “This for me, pet?”

Harry’s also bought him a fancy new sports car, hidden out back, but he’s going to keep that for himself now. He’ll need it for the eventual getaway, once he manages to free himself from Niall’s clutches. Which is what he’s working towards, definitely. This is all just to distract Niall, lure him into a sense of false security. 

“Maybe,” he says, squirming. Niall takes the hint, shifting off him so he can pull Harry’s jeans down and off, settling down beside him on the landing again. He kisses the rim of Harry’s ear, nibbles at it a little, hand sliding back between Harry’s legs. 

“Love how wet you get, babe,” he murmurs. “Like a girl, you are. Prettiest girl I ever saw.” 

Harry whimpers when Niall touches him, stroking him through the fabric with two fingers like he’s got a slick, wet slit between his legs instead of a cock. When Niall nudges his thighs apart, fingers drifting lower, he holds his breath. 

“Fuck,” Niall says in a strangled voice. “Harry. Please say this isn’t a tracking device.”

Now there’s an idea, Harry thinks. He wriggles a little, so Niall’s fingers are brushing against the base of the plug again. Maybe Zayn can design a prototype. 

“I’ll never tell,” he says. “You’ll never get it out of me.” 

“Think I’d rather keep it in you, actually,” Niall says, fingers curling around the base of the plug. He rocks it experimentally, watching Harry’s face. “You like that?” 

Harry groans and shuts his eyes tightly. “I hate it.” 

It’s sort of true, he realizes when he says it out loud. It feels really good but his head’s all mixed up. His heart hurts a little, too. He keeps forgetting that Niall’s his enemy and his mark, then remembering, then forgetting all over again. Zayn’s going to give him hell for this. 

The toy stills inside him. After a moment Harry cracks one eye open. Niall’s looking at him.

“I know you’re angry with me,” he says. “D’you want me to stop?”

“No,” Harry says instantly, because when they stop they’re going to have to go right back to trying to do each other in. Or they’re going to have to have a Talk, probably one where Niall tells him he just doesn’t see himself with someone who kills people for money, long-term, and he hopes Harry understands. He takes a steadying breath. “Wanna come.” 

Niall looks at him for a moment longer, then nods. He tugs the panties to one side and starts fucking the plug into him again, working him open till Harry’s trembling and gasping, toes curling against the floorboards. His fingers keep catching helplessly at the silk of Niall’s tie, the insides of his wrists still pressed tight together. He feels shivery with need, panicky almost, a hysterical edge to it. 

Niall props himself up on one elbow. He’s touching Harry’s hair with his other hand, nails raking across his scalp, fucking him slow and steady. 

“Do you remember,” he says suddenly. “That first night, in Bogotá?”

Of course Harry does. Everything about that night had seemed magical, fated almost, like the stars had aligned to bring the two of them together at that seedy bar. 

Niall had kissed him for the first time in the cab back to the hotel, tentative and sweet. Harry had responded by climbing into his lap and snogging him senseless, grinding his hips till he had Niall moaning into his mouth and the cab driver was cursing both of them out in Spanish. 

They’d wound up having to walk the last mile back to their hotel, collapsing into fits of giggles every few steps, dragging each other off into alleyways to kiss and touch and kiss some more.

Harry had been working for Simon for years already, spending most of his time on assignment in the company of people who’d cut your nose off and burn your home down soon as look at you. Meeting somebody like Niall – open, innocent, carefree Niall – in a place like that had felt too good to be true. 

“You liked my mermaid,” he says.

“I liked your everything.” 

Harry hides his face in his arm again. It isn’t fair, he thinks, with a fierceness that startles him. It isn’t fair of Niall to say things like that, not if he doesn’t mean them. If it’s all just been to take Harry in.

“You can’t hide from the firm,” he blurts out, to cover his confusion. “Even if – even if you take me out, Simon’s people will find you. They’ll kill you.” 

He can see it with a violent clarity. A hole through Niall’s forehead, brains splattered all over a wall somewhere, all the laughing light gone forever from his eyes. 

“Hey now,” Niall says, his voice gentle. “Harry, look at me.” 

Harry sets his jaw, staring pointedly up at the ceiling. His stupid allergies must be acting up again. They feel even worse when Niall cups his face in his hand and tilts it gently towards him, thumbing over his cheekbone. 

“Don’t you worry about me,” he says. “Or about Simon or anything like that. I can look after myself. Been doing it for years.” 

“I’m not worried,” Harry sniffs. “Just don’t think it’s fair, somebody else getting that money. I’m the one who’s had to put up with you and your smelly socks for ages. I’m the one who’s had to pretend like I actually care about golf.”

“Mm,” Niall says, a hint of a smile in his eyes. “Must’ve been torture for you.”

“You have no idea,” Harry says, though he knows they can both hear the lie. It’s been the best four years of his life, the happiest and the lightest. Maybe he should’ve known it could never last. 

Niall kisses him again. It’s gentler this time, so familiar it hurts. When he tilts up his hips, seeking friction, the toy shifts inside him, sends a spark racing up his spine.

“Harry,” Niall says. “I – ”

Harry can’t bear it. He twists away.

“Just,” he says. “Just – would you just fuck me already.” 

“We can’t, babe,” Niall says. “There isn’t time.” 

Harry feels close to tears. “Fingers,” he says. 

Niall sighs. “All right,” he says. “Can you get them wet for me?” 

He lifts a hand to Harry’s mouth, slipping two fingers inside. 

Harry takes his time with it, swirls his tongue around them, moans like he’s never been given anything so delicious in his life. 

If he’s good enough maybe he can convince Niall to use his mouth after, let Harry taste him at least. If he’s perfect maybe Niall will remember it forever, the way they used to be. How good they were together.

“God, Harry,” Niall says, staring down at him. “Here, just – ”

He tugs the panties the rest of the way off, dropping them somewhere on the landing behind him. Then he urges one of Harry’s knees up towards his chest and eases the plug out of him with a wet pop, slick fingers pressing inside before Harry can start to whine. 

“That’s lovely, Haz, that’s perfect.” 

Niall curls his fingers inside him, searching for that spot, and exhales sharply when Harry clenches down around him. It won’t last long. Harry can feel his orgasm building already, imminent, inevitable, as Niall talks to him in that calm, quiet voice. “Come on, petal, know you’re close,” he says. “Going to make a mess all over your tummy for me, aren’t you? Going to let me see you come?” 

He still isn’t touching Harry where he wants to be touched. “Please,” he begs, almost a sob, rocking his hips. “Please, Niall.”

“Shh, I know.” Niall slides down his body, looking up at Harry. He nuzzles his face against the side of Harry's dick, mouthing at the head, and just like that Harry’s coming, a pained gasp torn from his lips, cock jerking hard against his stomach. Niall draws back to watch, fingering him through it, fingers rubbing over his prostate as he milks Harry dry. “There, pet, that feels nice,” he’s murmuring, nonsense words, silly nothings: _messy, lovely, sweet._

Harry takes a long, shuddering breath, then another, turning his face into his arm as Niall’s fingers slip free. He closes his eyes when Niall goes downstairs to the kitchen, returning with a damp flannel he uses to gently wipe down Harry’s stomach and thighs. 

He wants to be brave, he really does. But the moment Niall’s fingers begin to work at the ties binding his wrists, something collapses inside of him. A wave of grief, terrible and dark, sweeps over him, and he can’t hold back a whimper. 

It’s over. All of it, over. He’s not going to kill Niall, he realizes that now. He’s not even going to try. And that means he’ll have to let Niall do whatever he wants with him: take him away, lock him up, stop loving him.

“Haz,” Niall says, looking concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Harry says, and bursts into tears. 

*

Niall seems horrified by this development. 

He’s got Harry half in his lap, naked except for his t-shirt, sobbing against his chest, and instead of arresting him he just keeps petting ineffectually at Harry’s hair, making the kind of soothing noises that might calm a small kitten but certainly not a heartbroken assassin, age twenty-something, who’s about to spend the rest of his life in prison without access to conjugal visits or organically sourced foods.

Harry doesn’t even understand why he’s bothering. Surely aftercare isn’t part of the usual MI6 protocol. 

“Oh god, Haz,” Niall’s saying, a bit helplessly. “Don’t – please don’t cry, Haz, it’s all right, it’s going to be okay. Come on, we’ll – um, we’ll pack a bag, yeah? We can put all your favorite tops in it, and your soaps and everything, so you’ll have everything you need.” 

This only makes Harry cry harder. He’s ninety-five percent sure you have to wear uniforms in prison, and he doesn’t want to bring his nice soaps somewhere where they might get stolen. 

Niall’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He fishes it free, shifting Harry slightly, and answers it.

“Horan,” he says, in a clipped, professional tone, and then relaxes immediately. “Oh, thank god. No, I – listen, are you almost here?”

There’s something familiar about the voice on the other end. Harry stills, mid-sob. 

“I need you here now,” Niall hisses, and listens. Then, startled, “Haz, what – ” 

Harry jerks away from him, knocking the phone out of his hand as he scrambles to his feet. “Who is that?” he demands, voice still thick from crying. “Who’s that on the phone?” 

“Just let me explain, Harry,” Niall says.

“I can’t hear you,” says the person on the other end. “Horan, I repeat, do you have him?” The voice is faint, but there’s no mistaking that Bradford accent. 

Harry staggers backwards, colliding with the wall of the landing.

Zayn knows about Niall, of course. He manages the surveillance setup for their house, and anyway Harry brags about Niall’s accounting exploits to anyone who’ll stand still long enough, so it’d be pretty hard for his coworkers not to have some idea who Harry’s fiancé is. 

But Niall? Niall’s never met Zayn. Not once. Never heard of him either, at least not from Harry’s lips. The only one of Harry’s coworkers Niall’s ever been allowed to meet is Barbara from the bakery. They exchange pies at Christmas. 

A sudden and horrible realization dawns.

This time when he swings at Niall, the punch lands. Niall stumbles back, clutching his face, his eyes wide with shock.

“Agh,” he says. “Jesus, Harry, what – ”

“You’re in cahoots,” Harry shouts. It’s one of their Words-of-the-Day, but there’s no time to properly appreciate it. “You’re all in _cahoots_ , you and Zayn and – oh my god, was this some kind of test? Did Simon send you?” 

“What – no, Harry, that’s not – ” 

“Fuck,” Harry swears. His back collides with the wall of the landing. “Have you – you’ve got a wire on or something? Is he listening now?”

His face is burning. He can’t believe how completely he’d been taken in, even when he still thought Niall was his enemy. God, he’d – he’d _begged_ Niall to fuck him, and all along Niall was just doing his job, far more effectively than Harry’s ever done his, and probably laughing the whole time about how easy Harry was for it. 

If this was a test, he’s just failed spectacularly. Simon’s going to kill him. Simon is actually, one hundred per cent, going to have him killed for this, painfully, and Niall’s going to be the one to bring him in. 

What’s waiting for him back at headquarters is about a thousand times worse than anything MI6 can do to him. 

He dives for the stairs. The gun. If he can get to it, he can hold Niall off – Zayn too, when he gets here. Give himself a fighting chance, at least. 

“Harry, stop!” 

He makes it to the bottom of the steps before Niall tackles him again, sending them both sprawling out across the floor. The man’s skills are clearly being wasted on golf, Harry thinks grimly as he crawls towards the coatrack, Niall clinging to his leg. He’s reaching out his hand, fingers almost brushing the metal barrel, when he feels a quick, painful jab in the back of his thigh. 

He twists around. There’s a syringe sticking out of the back of his bare leg, just above his knee. “ _No_ ,” he says, horrified, arching back to yank it free. “No, oh god, no, no – ”

“I’m sorry,” Niall’s babbling. “I’m so sorry, Harry, you wouldn’t stop, I just didn’t want you to get hurt.” 

Harry tries to push himself up but can’t. He slumps to the floor, boneless. The sedative is one he’s used many times before, a special fast-acting compound engineered in Simon’s private lab. In thirty seconds, a minute maybe, he’ll be unconscious. 

Then he’ll wake up in the firm’s headquarters. Harry’s never seen the interrogation rooms himself, but he’s heard the stories. They all have. 

Hands roll him onto his back. Harry feels a sudden, painful surge of hope. Maybe Niall will have mercy on him. Maybe when he looks at his face he’ll think about all the good times they’ve had and decide to kill Harry right here instead of dragging him back to be tortured. 

The edges of his vision are going dark. Niall’s touching his face now, holding it. His mouth is moving, but someone’s switched off the sound. 

It’s a nice mouth, Harry thinks dazedly, even if it's never once told him the truth. He's glad he’d gotten to kiss it, for a little while at least. He wishes it had been for longer. 

"I love you," Niall’s mouth seems to be saying. 

But that isn’t real, Harry knows. It's only in his head. It’s only what he wants to be true. 

He’s tired, suddenly. More tired than he’s ever been, weary right down to his bones. How nice it’ll be, Harry thinks, his eyes drifting shut. How nice it’ll be, just to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing he sees upon opening his eyes is the watermark, a dark brown blotch on the otherwise white expanse of the ceiling. 

It’s shaped sort of like a zombie baby, Harry thinks hazily, its evil mouth half open, tiny arms outstretched. Or like Ireland. Ireland, he realizes, looks rather like a zombie baby. 

That makes him laugh. He’ll have to tell Niall that. Niall loves Ireland. 

“He’s awake,” a voice says near his elbow. Harry’s so startled he flails – or tries to, anyway. That’s when he discovers that he’s lying on some kind of mattress, and his arms and legs are handcuffed. He remembers, with a terrible jolt, that he won’t get to tell Niall anything, ever again, and also that he’s about to be horribly killed.

He screams. And screams, and screams, and screams, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” someone says, and there’s a sharp, stinging sensation in his upper arm. 

* 

When he opens his eyes again, Liam Payne is looming over him. 

“Am I dead,” Harry croaks. His head aches and his mouth tastes foul, like maybe he threw up in it and then neglected to brush his teeth for a year. He feels sluggish and slow, and the lights are way too bright.

“Oh, no, not at all!” Liam says happily. 

Harry considers this. He must be dreaming, then. Maybe if he goes to sleep in the dream, _Inception_ -style, he’ll have a different, better dream, one that doesn’t feature his least favorite of all of Niall’s accountant friends. Liam Payne is far too much of a man’s man for Harry’s taste, and not in a fun sexy way either. He’s always blustering around doing horrible things like chatting up girls and growing chest hair. Harry can’t stand him. 

“Fuck off,” Harry says, closing his eyes. 

Someone pinches him, hard. “Ow!” he yelps, eyes flying open again. “What’d you do that for?”

Zayn’s face has appeared next to Liam’s. What a very odd dream, Harry thinks. His subconscious must be running wild, to dream up the two of them together. 

“You’ve had plenty of beauty rest already. Time to wake up, princess.”

“I want a better dream,” Harry complains. “I hate this one. It’s got Liam in it.” 

“You be nice to Liam,” Zayn says mildly. “He saved your life, and he’s on our side. And you’re not dreaming, you idiot.”

Harry remembers that being alive and awake means he’s about to die, and also that Zayn somehow betrayed him and is not, in fact, on his side. He draws a breath to start screaming again. 

A hand is clamped over his mouth. “None of that. We’re all out of sedative, and none of us fancy listening to you yell bloody murder.” 

“I’ll bloody murder you,” Harry says threateningly, as soon as he’s able to speak again. “I’ll bloody murder all of you. I’m an assassin, you know.” 

"No one's killing anyone," Liam says, an anxious expression on his face. "That's the whole point of this! Everybody gets to live.”

“The whole point of what?” Harry demands. He glances around the room, eyes narrowing. The cell they’ve imprisoned him is set up to resemble a bedroom. His hands and legs are shackled to the head and footboard of what appears to be a standard king-sized bed. A small framed painting of a beach scene hangs on the wall opposite.

More mind games, Harry thinks. The only indication of the room’s true purpose is a set of what appear to be torture implements propped up against the wall next to the bed. He looks at them and shivers, saying bravely, “If you’re going to use those on me, just do it.” 

“Use what on you?” Liam says.

“You’ve got torture stuff,” Harry says. “I see it right there, in the corner.” 

“Oh, that’s just my chin-up bar,” Liam says. “You just hook it over the doorframe like this, see? And then you can do exercises on the go, like this.”

He demonstrates by doing five rapid and apparently effortless pull-ups in a row. His t-shirt keeps riding up, revealing a set of abs so ridiculously defined Harry suspects him of contouring them in. 

“Brilliant, right?” Liam says when he’s finished, dropping to the ground.

“God, yes,” Zayn says, staring openly. He licks his lips. “You’ll have to, ah – show me your workout routine later, yeah? Just walk me through it, step by step. Slowly.”

“Of course,” Liam says happily. “But you know, if you want the best results you really have to combine it with the proper diet. I can help you draw up a nutrition plan too, if you’d like. The secret is to eat twice as many proteins as fats, and reduce your sugars on alternating days. And I don’t mean to nag, Zayn, but if you want ideal results you’ll really have to give up smoking – ”

“Excuse me,” Harry says loudly from where he’s still tied to the bed.

“Oh, sorry,” Liam says. “Anyway, the point is, we’ve rescued you! From the firm, and, um, from MI6, actually, so you won’t be able to go back to England anytime soon. Or ever.”

“I didn’t need rescuing,” Harry snaps. “I was doing perfectly fine. I was about to defeat Niall and flee the country on my own, thank you very much.” 

“Well, we found you passed out in a hallway in a pair of women's underwear,” Zayn says, “so yeah, you were obviously doing a bang-up job with that one.” 

“I had a plan,” Harry says, giving Zayn a scathing look. “It was all part of my plan.”

He doesn’t mention that in those final moments, his only real plan was to hope against hope that his lover would kill him instead of dragging him back to die miserably at the hands of his own employer. Zayn already looks smug enough. If he’s not careful his face is going to get stuck like that. Harry tells him this.

“Stuck like what?” Zayn rolls his eyes. “Perfect? Flawless? Anyway, if you’d just listened to your damn voicemail, we could’ve avoided all of this. I told you to stay calm, you idiot. I believe I specifically told you to not get emotional.” 

“I tried,” Harry protests. “I shot at him and everything. But then I got tied up, and he tricked me with sex, and it was all very confusing, emotionally!"

"You weren't supposed to shoot at him, Harry, you were supposed to not do anything rash till he got home to explain things," Zayn says. “And I don’t even want to get into why literally your _first instinct_ was to kill the love of your life. We had a plan, and you very nearly bollocksed it all up. And Liam here almost took a bullet to the leg trying to get you out.”

“I’m fine, though,” Liam puts in. Zayn pats him on the thigh, pretty high up. 

“The only person trying to kill me was Niall,” Harry says. “Just like the only person locking me up right now is you two. And you all _know_ each other somehow, and you’ve been all been lying to me for ages. You’re all in cahoots." 

He wishes there were someone following him around tallying up how many times he’s managed to use the Word of the Day. 

“We were protecting you,” Liam says, to which Zayn adds, “From yourself, mostly. Honestly, Harry, you drafted your resignation letter in an email. And you titled it _I’m sorry but I have to quit being an assassin now, because I’m in love_.”

“It was a draft,” Harry exclaims. “No one was supposed to see it. I was going to make it sound more professional before I sent it.”

“The point is, it was on the firm’s private server. Obviously I deleted it the second I came across it, but Simon had already seen it and ordered a hit on you. I alerted Niall, who got Liam to put together an emergency extraction plan, and then we came in as backup.”

Harry feels dazed. “But I got a message from headquarters," he says. "After you called. It said – there was a hit on Niall, not me. The bounty was six million pounds.” 

“I saw it,” Zayn says. “I hacked your messages. It didn’t go out on the general channel, just to you. I think it was just Simon being petty. He wanted it to be the last thing you saw before you died or something. So you'd feel all betrayed.”

“I wouldn’t have told on Simon," Harry says. "I’m not a snitch. I just wanted to have a regular life with, like, a normal job.” 

“Oh, come on, Harry," Zayn says, rolling his eyes. "You knew enough about the firm to put him in prison for the rest of his life. Or you could’ve sold him out to a rival agency. You've got account numbers, safehouse locations, client lists, the works. The only way you were leaving that firm was in a body bag.” 

“Which you did,” Liam says. “In a manner of speaking.” 

“What?” Harry says. 

“You’re dead,” Zayn says, with more relish than Harry thinks is strictly appropriate. “And your body was burned in a terrible fire, burned beyond recognition.” 

If this is the afterlife, him tied to a bed with only these two for company, Harry’s going to be writing some strongly worded letters soon. Admittedly his life hasn’t been exactly blameless – there’s been a lot of kinky sex and a fair amount of murder – but this is beyond the pale.

He thinks he understands what Zayn’s getting at, though. “Dental records,” he points out. 

“Mysteriously unavailable," Liam says. "Due to a server crash and a small coincidental fire at your childhood dentist’s office. Niall had to identify your body on the basis of your rings.”

“How horrible for him,” Harry breathes.

“It wasn’t real,” Zayn says. “Try and keep up, Harry. We faked your death so Simon would leave you alone.” 

“So – you’re not with MI6? You’re not on anybody’s team?” 

“We’re on your team now,” Liam says happily, to which Zayn snorts and says, “Yeah, Haz, your fiancé’s called in all his favors at once, so now all of us are out of a job.”

Harry stares up at the ceiling, trying to process all of this. “Niall, too?” he asks. “He’s out of a job too?”

Liam and Zayn exchange a look. Then Liam says, rather carefully, “He's got some things to take care of first. There were some, er, complications with the extraction plan, like Zayn said, and also we thought it'd be a bit suspicious if you both went missing at the same time."

Harry doesn’t say anything for a moment. He stares at the watermark on the ceiling. 

“Can you untie me, please,” he says finally. 

“Harry, I know this is a lot to take in. We just don’t want you to do anything rash.”

“I feel fine,” Harry lies. “I won’t do anything.”

The second his hands are free, he shoves Liam backwards into Zayn, sending them both toppling to the ground. He vaults off the bed, races through a tiny kitchen and a cramped living room, and bursts out the front door, blinking wildly against the blinding sunlight. He sprints about a hundred meters before realizing why nobody’s giving chase. 

He stops, feet sinking into the hot sand, and looks around. 

It’s a very small island. There’s a beach, the tiny villa, and a few scattered clusters of palm trees, but that’s it, nothing else but blue sea around them. Harry can see right from one end of it to the other.

“Oh, right, forgot to tell you,” Zayn calls from the sofa, after Harry does his walk of shame back into the house. “We’ve got to stay on this remote island till we get the all-clear from Niall.” 

*

Life on the island is horrible.

There’s nothing to do, for one thing. There’s no television and he doesn’t have his mobile, not that he could get service out here anyway. The house is way too small to fit three people comfortably, and he has to listen to Zayn flirting with an oblivious Liam almost twenty-four seven, which involves a lot of batting his eyelashes and pretending not to be able to open jars and fellating spoons whenever possible. 

Mostly it’s annoying that these moves are plagiarized straight from his own personal repertoire, Harry thinks as he escapes yet again to the beach. Zayn’s currently lying in the sofa in the living room, moaning like a porn star as a worried Liam massages a cramp out of his leg.

*  
The other terrible thing about the island is that the life-altering revelations just keep coming. 

The first big reveal is that Liam’s not an accountant, which Harry had sort of figured out by now. Apparently he and Niall used to be in the SAS together, before Niall joined MI6 and Liam ditched it all to come babysit Harry on a desert island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific. 

Not that Liam seems to be anything but delighted to be there, mind. He runs about a thousand laps around the island every day, which drives Harry crazy, and swims out to sea, which makes Zayn anxious, and does loads of shirtless pull-ups, which results in everyone involved having to take long showers afterwards, albeit for different reasons. 

*

The second revelation is that Harry has a new identity, since Harry Styles is now officially dead. Liam surprises him with it over breakfast, about a week after they arrive on the island. 

“I came up with it myself,” he says nervously, sliding a manila envelope across the table. Inside is a passport and a birth certificate. “Um, I’m not very creative, and it was sort of a rush job, but I think it turned out okay.” 

HAZZARD STARS, the birth certificate reads. 

Harry can get behind that, he supposes. It has a certain flair. He flips open the passport and makes an involuntary noise of shock. 

It is, bar none, the worst photograph of himself he’s ever seen. It might even be the worst photo ever taken, period. He shuts the passport immediately, before the image can seep into his consciousness and affect his self-perception forever.

“I’ll kill you for this,” he says coldly to Liam. 

"Oh, that was me,” Zayn says, grinning at him over his orange juice. "Must've attached the wrong image file. Whoopsie daisy."

*

The third revelation is that all of Harry’s friends are friends with each other, and apparently have been for years. 

It’s not just Zayn and Liam, either. Louis is in cahoots too, which Harry discovers when he drops by the island in his speedboat later in the week to bring them fresh supplies. 

“We just go for drinks sometimes,” Liam says to him that evening while they’re cooking dinner that evening. Louis is out on the beach with Zayn, showing him all the totally sick customizations he’s made to the boat. “And we sort of have a pub trivia team too, but we only play about once a month.” 

Harry’s so angry he tries to hijack Louis’ boat after dessert, armed with a knife stolen from the kitchen. He’s swiftly disarmed by Liam and deposited back in the bedroom, handcuffed to the headboard. He lies in the dark sulking, listening to them laugh and drink and play card games in the living room. 

Harry wonders if he was ever really a good assassin, or if people just projected their own fantasies onto him until they couldn’t tell the difference. He’ll never know now, will he, now that his career’s suddenly over and he’s stuck on this stupid island with people who love hanging out without him. 

Liam brings him some water and another slice of pie later that night, and feeds it to him by hand, sitting on the edge of the bed. Harry chews up a bite of pie and spits it at Liam just to spite him, but Liam just cleans it up and then sits by him on the bed, stroking his hair and talking to him happily until Harry, without intending to, falls asleep. 

He wakes up again in the middle of the night to discover that he’s been unhandcuffed. Zayn and Liam are snuggled up on either side of him, Liam at his back, Zayn drooling into his hair. Louis is snoring loudly in the living room. 

It’s too much bother to steal a boat at this hour, Harry thinks grumpily. Nobody could expect it of him. Instead he wriggles back a little so Liam can spoon him properly and drags Zayn’s arm across his waist, before drifting off again. 

*

The fourth revelation isn’t a revelation so much as a slow, creeping realization. Harry can’t stop himself from having it, no matter how much he tries not to think about it. 

Niall hasn’t tried to make contact with him once. Harry’s overheard Louis mention him to Liam once or twice in hushed tones in the kitchen, when they think he’s distracted elsewhere, but they always stop talking when he comes in. When he comes up in conversation, the others breeze past it easily, like hearing the name _Niall_ doesn’t send them into paroxysms of grief and rage and bewildered hurt.

It gets worse, the longer they stay on the island. 

Harry doesn’t understand what he’d done wrong. Okay, so he’d tried to kill Niall. But his efforts had been pretty half-hearted, and he’s pretty sure Niall hadn’t even been all that angry about it at the time. The more he replays the memory of their last evening together, the more confused he gets. 

He knows now that Niall never had any intention of harming him, not even when Harry was shooting at him. And the sex had been good, hadn’t it? But then, Niall’s apparently a pretty convincing actor, so there’s no way of telling for sure. And Liam never outright _said_ that Niall was coming back for him, just that he’d give them the all-clear when it was safe to leave. 

Maybe the sex really was just a goodbye fuck, nothing more. Harry thinks about this when he can’t sleep, thinks about the way Niall had touched him and talked to him and held him after when he cried. 

Probably Niall just saved his life because he’s a fundamentally good person, not because he still wanted to marry him. Maybe he’s just hoping that Harry will get the hint, stranded out here on this island, and realize things are over between them without having to be told.

As the days wear on, Harry gets more and more irritable, brooding all the time and snapping at anyone who comes too close. He’s also prone to fits of quiet weeping, though mostly he saves those for when everyone’s asleep or when he’s in the shower with the water turned on full blast. Sometimes he swims out away from the house and cries out there, treading water with his back to the house, choking on salt water and tears, till he’s tired enough to let the waves wash him up onto the beach again. 

After nearly a month on the island, he takes his engagement ring off. He doesn’t even know why they bothered to leave it on when they brought him here, since all his other jewelry was removed for fake-death-staging purposes. If he were in a film, he thinks, he’d toss the ring into the sea or something equally dramatic. But when he takes it down to the beach and holds it up to the light, ready to throw, his stomach starts to feel funny and his throat gets tight. 

He hides it under the mattress instead. Liam and Zayn exchange another look over his head at the breakfast table the next morning, but nobody comments on it, which Harry takes to mean that they’ve all been waiting for him to wise up. 

Whatever. Harry tries not to think about it, just like he’s stopped thinking about the future. Probably he’ll rot on this island forever, wasting away his youth and beauty in this hellhole of a tropical paradise.

It might not be so bad, all things considered.

*

The fifth revelation occurs a week later, when he wanders out of the bedroom to discover Liam and Zayn engaged in unspeakable acts of the carnal persuasion on the foldout sofa. 

"You're straight," he tells Liam. He feels weary rather than angry. He’s not sure he’s got the inner strength to withstand yet another one of life’s great certainties crumbling to dust around him. “You’re always going on about girls.”

“Well, it’s Zayn,” Liam says, a bit apologetically, “and anyway, people are complicated.” 

Harry sort of gets that, but also, he hates it. He hates Liam, and Zayn, and Louis with his tricked-out speedboat. He hates that he’d wanted to quit killing people for money and just have a normal life again, but now that he’s got it he doesn’t quite know who he is anymore. 

It’s too hard to say all of that out loud, though. Especially when Zayn and Liam are looking up at him like that, obviously happy and very naked. 

“I’m going for a swim,” Harry announces, and then adds, “ _Alone_ ,” so they’ll know he’s upset and will offer to come out with him. 

Nobody does, because everyone loves hanging out without Harry. He makes sure to slam the front door loudly on his way out.

“Is he okay, do you think?” he hears Liam whisper through the open window.

“He’ll be fine,” Zayn says. “Now do that thing with your tongue again, babes. You’re getting so good at this.” 

*

He splashes around in the water for a while, sulking, then sprawls out in the sand and looks at the waves with the binoculars Louis brought him last week. Liam had seemed very excited at the prospect of him taking up outdoor birdwatching – Harry thinks he understands why, now – and had got him a nature guide and a little book to keep notes in. 

Unfortunately, it turns out the island’s too small to have much in the way of wildlife. Also Harry’s been reluctant to use the nature guide too much, in case his Stockholm syndrome gets worse and he starts wanting to sleep with Liam. 

Mostly he just scans over the water and the tops of the trees with his binoculars, meditating on the pettiness of man's cares and the grand impersonality of nature.

He’s just wondering if Zayn and Liam are going to make him sleep by himself again, now that they’re an item, when he spots it. 

A dot on the horizon. Barely more than a speck, but growing rapidly larger.

Harry tracks its approach. It’s a boat, and by the looks of it, not Louis’. 

“Hey!” he yells, dropping the binoculars. He waves his arms wildly over his head. “Help! Over here, look! I’m being held hostage by sex maniacs!” 

The dot gets even bigger, close enough to see with the naked eye. It's got a shock of bleached blond hair and a dreadful sunburn. 

Harry scowls.

*

"Harry."

He’s lying flat on his back in the sand at the farthest reach of the beach, gazing up at the clouds through his binoculars. He hasn’t looked at Niall yet, but his voice sounds very serious, which is how Harry knows he’s come to break up with him for good. 

Well, he’s not going to make it easy on him. 

“Will you please put those down?” 

Harry ignores him. A shadow falls across him. Niall’s leaning over him, blocking his view.

“What have we here,” Harry says, affecting a David Attenborough voice. “A rare specimen indeed. The _Liarus maximus_.” 

“You’re angry.”

“A littke known fact about this species,” Harry continues, “is that it never writes, it never calls.” 

“Harry,” Niall says.

“It’s Hazzard now,” Harry says coolly. “Hazzard Stars.” 

He zooms in even closer, so that all he can see is the slightly sunburnt expanse of Niall's forehead. It’s not so hard to look at him when he’s broken up into manageable pieces. 

“You’re getting a spot,” he lies. “It looks awful." 

“I’ll put some ointment on it,” Niall says. “Listen, Har – er, Hazzard. I want to apologize.”

Harry thinks he could practically write the rest of the speech for him. _Sorry I didn’t care enough about you to send a note_ , maybe, or _Sorry all your friends like me better than you. Sorry I pretended to want to marry you when really I was living a double life. Sorry I don’t want to marry you anymore._

“I get it,” he says, a lump in his throat. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

He wishes he could swim out to sea now and have a quick cry, and possibly drown while he’s at it, to save them both the awkwardness of this breakup. Maybe Niall would carry in his body from the sea and look upon his tragic drowned face and realize he really had loved Harry after all, at least a little bit. 

“I think we do,” Niall says apologetically. “I think we probably should have had this conversation a long time ago, only I kept putting it off.”

Harry’s resolve breaks. He flings the binoculars down in the sand and scrambles to his feet, pushing past Niall without looking at him, and runs back to the villa. He forgets about Zayn and Liam until it’s too late.

"Agh,” he says, shielding his eyes, and then, furiously, “That should be illegal.”

Liam’s head pops up over the back of the sofa. “You don't mean that, Harry,” he says, shocked.

Harry doesn't really – he's passionately committed to the idea of sexual freedom between consenting adults – but it might weaken his position to say so now. He settles for slamming the bedroom door shut and locking it behind him, before crawling miserably under the duvet. 

*

He spends the rest of the day huddled under the blankets in a kind of daze. Niall’s so close, just on the other side of that door, but somehow it feels a thousand times worse than when he was an ocean away. Liam knocks on the door and asks him nicely to come out and talk, but Harry ignores him. At least nobody forces the door, though he can hear them talking in low voices in the living room – first the three of them, and then Louis too, because why shouldn’t everyone Harry knows be on hand to witness his heart getting broken. 

Night has long since fallen when he wakes up again, this time to the scritch-scratching of someone picking the lock on the bedroom door.

Harry rolls over, his back to the door, eyes closed. The door opens quietly and shuts again. He feels the mattress dip slightly, as someone sits on the edge of the bed first and then stretches out alongside him. 

There’s a long silence, and then Niall says softly, “I know you’re awake, Harry.”

Harry stiffens at the sound of his voice, but Niall doesn’t seem to expect a reply. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “I understand if you don’t want to look at me right now. So I’m just going to say my bit, all right? And then if you want to say something after, you can, or I can leave if that’s what you want.” 

Silence.

“I should’ve told you sooner,” Niall says heavily. “About me, and me knowing about you. I wanted to, but – I was afraid it’d change things, and everything was so good between us. And the longer I waited the harder it got to say anything, until everything fell apart at the end. And I should’ve tried harder to explain that night, I know. The sex was – that was selfish of me, and I’m sorry.” 

So it had just been a fuck, then. Nothing more. Harry feels something wither inside him, a little tendril of hope he hadn’t realized he was still nursing. A small part of him wants Niall to just stop talking before he ruins anything else, so Harry can slink away with some of his illusions intact. But a bigger part of him just wants it to be finished, the bandage ripped off once and for all. 

“Just say it,” he says suddenly. 

Niall goes still behind him. “Say what?” he asks carefully.

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, so hard it hurts. Then he opens them again, staring at the wall, and says, “I know you don’t want me anymore,” he says. “I know I messed everything up and we can’t, like – be together anymore. So just say it, Niall, and then everyone can go home and we can all just – just forget this ever happened.” 

There’s a brief silence, and then Niall says, “Harry. Will you roll over for me?”

“I _can’t,_ ” Harry says in a small, anguished voice. He doesn’t get why Niall’s playing dumb like this, why he seems determined to make this as painful as possible for him. “I don’t want you to see me.” 

But he doesn’t resist when Niall turns him over to face him, or when he reaches up to cup Harry’s face in his hand, a thumb stroking over his cheekbone. He looks at Niall properly for the first time, at his familiar face, at the slight furrow between his eyes. 

“Oh, petal,” Niall says softly to him. “Is that what you’ve been thinking all this time? Is that why you took your ring off?” 

“Just say it,” Harry begs again, his vision blurring up with tears. “I know it already, so just, please – ”

Niall kisses him. 

He’s gentle with it, tentative, fitting their mouths carefully together. It feels like the first time they’d ever kissed. Not the way they’d kissed after, in the street stumbling back to the hotel – half-feverish with it, laughing – but the very first time, when Niall had put a hand on Harry’s thigh in the backseat of a cab and kissed him lightly, sweetly, on the mouth.

It had made Harry feel wild inside. It makes him feel that way still – electric almost, a current sparking and shivering right through him. When Niall pulls back he makes a small, desperate noise, eyes opening. 

“God, I missed you,” Niall breathes, looking at him. “I missed you so much.”

He kisses him again, fiercer this time, slipping a hand into Harry’s hair and tugging hard. When Harry moans into his mouth, body going pliant at the touch, he rolls on top of him without breaking the kiss, pressing him into the mattress. 

“Niall,” Harry gasps, fisting his hand in the front of his t-shirt, pulling at it. “Niall.” He feels dizzy and hot all over, desperate to touch, unsure what he’s asking for.

Niall knows, though. He always knows. He pulls back just far enough to yank his own shirt off over his head before leaning back in, sliding his hands up under Harry’s to ease it up and off. The shirt gets stuck for a moment as Niall tugs it over his head; Harry’s arms are trapped over his head for a moment, fabric stretched tight across his face, and he feels a surge of quivery panic mixed confusingly with want, sense memory shivering through him.

Then he’s free, gulping down air, and Niall’s touching him everywhere, kissing him everywhere, his face and throat, the swallows and the moth, dipping lower. “I want,” Niall says, nuzzling at his stomach, tugging impatiently at the waistband of his shorts. 

Harry can’t think, can only feel. 

There’s nothing but the velvet heat of Niall’s mouth as he swallows him down, and the firm hands that hold his thighs apart and his hips still as he thrashes. His hands clench into fists at his sides, nails biting into the soft flesh of his palms, as he twists his head to the side, and gasps, and comes. 

Niall takes it all and soothes him through it, stroking his thigh as he finishes, cleaning him up with his tongue. Then he shifts back up the mattress and pulls Harry in tight, cradling his head to his chest, fingers raking through his sweaty curls. 

“You idiot,” he says, his voice wrecked. “As if I’d ever – as if anything – Harry. I’ve never stopped wanting you, not since the day I met you.” 

“You didn’t write me,” Harry says, barely more than a whisper. “I woke up and you weren’t here, and you never came, you never wrote – I thought you might, but you never did, and you weren’t here – ”

“I’m sorry,” Niall says. “God, I’m sorry, Harry, I had to stay in England for a while, to sort out the details. And I thought you were furious with me, and Liam said you didn’t ever really ask, so I just – I thought I should wait till everything was handled and I could apologize properly, in person. And then if you didn’t want anything to do with me after I could, like – give you the boat, if you wanted it, and you could go.” 

Harry sits bolt upright in bed. Niall looks alarmed.

“Oh my god,” Harry says. “Oh my god, are you kidding me?”

“Um,” Niall says. “No?”

“I spent a whole month crying in the ocean,” Harry hisses, poking Niall in the chest, “because you couldn’t be bothered to jot down ‘let’s still be engaged, be by in a few weeks’ on a Post-it note and hand it to Louis.”

Niall catches his hand and tries to hold it, which, nope. Harry’s not falling for that one. He _invented_ that one. 

“It might’ve been intercepted,” Niall says. “Also, I wasn’t even sure you still wanted to be engaged. What with the whole you trying to kill me in our own home, on our anniversary.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Harry says quickly. “We’re talking about your pathological aversion to conflict right now. That’s probably why I never in a zillion years suspected you of being in the military.” 

“Oi,” says Niall. “Me being in the military is the whole reason you’re alive right now.”

“Alive,” Harry says, sweeping his hand out dramatically, “as a hostage, on an island the size of a postage stamp. It’s like being trapped in a special circle of hell, watching stupid Leeyum run laps and do a zillion pull-ups like a showoff all the time – ”

“Liam is very fond of you,” Niall says. “He specifically said he thinks your jokes are funny.” 

Harry narrows his eyes. He’s still not entirely sure he can trust Niall, not after the whole lying to each other for years thing. “Did he say which ones he liked best?”

“Um – something about a barber?” Niall says, frowning. “And a duck, maybe?”

It might just be a lucky guess, but chances are pretty good Harry’s told a joke about a barber and a duck at some point in the last month. He’s got a pretty stable repertoire. “Well. I guess he does have nice abs,” Harry says grudgingly. “And he’s a good listener.”

“See?” Niall looks triumphant. “And you never would’ve given him a chance, if you hadn’t been marooned on this island with him.” 

Harry flops back down on the bed beside him. He supposes he can see Niall’s point. Also, the island did turn Liam gay, or at least Zayn-sexual, so maybe the month hasn’t been a complete wash.

“I still think you should’ve just told me,” he says. “Like, the second you found out. How long have you known, anyway?”

“We-eell,” Niall says, “at the hotel in Colombia there was a whole row of vials in the medicine cabinet over the sink labeled SPECIAL POISON – DO NOT EAT with skulls and crossbones drawn all over the labels.”

Harry is indignant. “You looked in the cabinet? That’s private!”

Niall rolls his eyes. “Everybody looks in the cabinet, Harry. It’s just human nature. Besides, I could’ve just needed toothpaste or something?” 

“Well, fine,” Harry says. “But for all you knew I could’ve just been some weirdo on the loose, poisoning innocent civilians.”

“I did consider that,” Niall says. “But then that drug dealer you were flirting with turned up poisoned a few days later. After that I sort of – kept an eye out. I wasn’t spying on you or anything, it was just part of my job. And I noticed that every time you had to go on flour inspection trips for the bakery, some really nasty underworld type wound up dead.”

He pauses. “And then there was Newcastle.”

Harry grimaces. He’d had to answer to Simon for that one. 

“In your defense,” Niall says comfortingly, “no one could have predicted the cat would choose that exact moment to go into labor.”

“Right?” Harry says fervently. “ _Right_?”

“Well,” says Niall, “Zayn showed up on my doorstep in a panic, ‘cos he thought Simon was going to kill you and he wanted to know if I could get you out of the country if I had to. And then Liam helped us break into police headquarters to steal the security footage, and Louis brought it to Simon, and that was that.”

“But Newcastle was ages ago. Why didn’t you tell me then?”

Niall picks at the duvet. “I guess I wanted you to tell me,” he says. “I know it’s dumb, and I should’ve just said, but – I sort of thought you’d tell me when you were ready.” 

Harry thinks about it. “I didn’t not trust you,” he says. “You know that, right?”

Niall shrugs, not looking at him. “Sure.”

“No, really,” Harry says. “I just didn’t want you to look at me differently or anything. If I told you I did people in for money you might’ve been like, _Oh, sorry, dealbreaker_. And I really liked you.” 

“I get that,” Niall says. “I do. And I mean – I kind of like that you’ve always done your own thing, you know? You’ve got your own life and your own friends and all that. The last thing I ever wanted was to keep you from doing all the stuff you wanted to do.” 

“That’s really sweet,” Harry says, “only it turns out all my friends are really your friends.” He’s trying not to feel hurt about this, in the spirit of their reconciliation, but it’s kind of hard. “You guys hang out without me all the time. And you never said.” 

“But it’s all because of you,” Niall says, grabbing Harry’s hand again. This time Harry lets him get away with it. “The whole reason we all kept in touch was so we could look after you when you needed it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asks.

“Um, well,” Niall says. “I mean – being an assassin’s a tough job, isn’t it? It’s hard to do it all by yourself.”

“Hold on a minute,” Harry says. “You mean you lot helped me on missions?”

“Just sometimes,” Niall says quickly. “When it looked like you might be in a tough spot. I mean, Zayn’s amazing with technology stuff, obviously, and Liam’s a really good fighter, and Louis is great at escapes and creating general mayhem, so it just kind of worked out.”

“Huh,” Harry says.

“It’s kind of amazing, if you think about it,” Niall says. “I mean, we were all just sort of thrown together, but we actually make a pretty good team.”

Now that Harry’s thinking about it, there are a number of times where he’s been in hot water –quite literally, on at least one occasion – and something weird’s happened at the last minute, a series of bizarre coincidences that somehow result in him escaping unscathed. 

Like the time he’d almost walked into a wall of fire because his hair was in his eyes, and Zayn had appeared out of nowhere to snatch him away just in time. Or the time when he’d fallen asleep in the car on a stakeout and gotten captured by the mob, and Louis snuck in disguised as a bodyguard and helped him fight his way out. Or the time when he’d rigged up an explosive but accidentally bought a fuse that was only two meters instead of twenty, only when he opened his bag in a panic he discovered that he must’ve stuffed a whole coil of extra fuse in there and forgotten about it. He’d thought he just had exceptional luck, but – 

“I’m not even that good at my job, am I,” he says, feeling a bit glum. 

Niall squeezes his hand. “No, Harry, don’t say that. You’re a great assassin,” he says. “I mean, they wouldn’t call you The Widowmaker if you weren’t really good at your job, would they?” 

“Windowmaker.”

“What?”

“It’s got an n in it,” Harry explains. “It’s from the saying, you know? _Every time life closes a door, it opens a window_.” Actually Zayn had just misprinted the business cards, but it seemed like a shame to waste all that paper. 

Niall’s expression does something complicated. Harry starts to feel a bit defensive, except that all of a sudden he’s being swept into Niall’s arms and kissed passionately. 

“Christ, Harry Styles,” Niall says between kisses. “I really fucking love you.”

“That’s Hazzard Stars to you,” Harry says, and then, because he’s a sucker for a love declaration, “Do you mean that?”

“Saved your life, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but,” Harry says. He takes a breath, and then voices his last, deepest, most secret fear. “You would’ve saved anybody, I’m pretty sure. Even if you didn’t love them. I mean, you’re just a generally good person, and – ” 

Niall grabs his face with both hands. He presses their foreheads together, so they’re looking straight into each other’s eyes, unblinking. It’s sort of weird, and also beautiful, and Harry’s quivering with how much he wants Niall to love him back.

“Harry,” Niall says. “I love you so much it gives me acid-reflux sometimes.” 

Harry’s breath catches in his throat. He presses his palm flat against Niall’s chest and pushes hard, sending him sprawling back onto the bed. 

“What’s the matter?” Niall gasps. “What’re you doing?”

Harry straddles his lap and begins to yank open his flies.

“I’m about to kill you,” he says, “with sex.” 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr post [here](http://saysthemagpie.tumblr.com/post/144641326609/happiness-is-a-warm-gun-harryniall-liamzayn), which is also my fic writing blog. comments and kudos bring me great joy, a deep sense of inner peace, clear skin, etc.


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